


His Favourite Worst Nightmare

by 11dishwashers



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Art, M/M, artist! dongyoung, businessman taeyong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 09:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14912528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/11dishwashers/pseuds/11dishwashers
Summary: Dongyoung is a spiteful "artist" who has more than enough sense to realise he should move out, yet he doesn't. Taeyong is his despicable ex boyfriend who can't help but get in a dig whenever he can. Taeil has an art show.Alternatively, Seoul's most dysfunctional flatmates and their grand ideas.





	His Favourite Worst Nightmare

Despite Dongyoung's endless wrathful glances and cold shouldered responses towards his ex boyfriend (and-or current roommate), Taeyong still figured(aloud) that there was nothing to be done when the Earth had spun without you just once. To him, it seemed not as devastating as that which was true; flesh was scarred to be burned to be ashed, and once in a pile the dust rose up to the sun, and plants were withered and chopped and their petals blew away without a witness to proclaim sadness or even acknowledgement, and Dongyoung's body of work reflected the past so much that it could never dig its teeth into the present for very long. "That's just how life is," he was saying, thus divulging the reason  _ once again _ why Dongyoung had broken it off in the first place- Taeyong was a creature most unfound in realms where politeness or manners resided, or even the simplest self awareness, and found it very hard to speak with any empathy whatsoever. Was he never taught to think for others as much as himself? Perhaps he hadn't listened to whoever had told him that lesson, for he was too affixed with his own vanity at the time. Instead he said these 'brutally honest things' that Dongyoung had not intentionally drawn out of him, and continued scrubbing at the limescale rimming the kitchen tap as though the world would crumble in his palms should he fail in his conquest of a creepy sanitary standard for the entire flat(including Dongyoung's room, which he had no business being in anymore, much less affecting with his baby hands- but Dongyoung never brought that up as it was always nice to have a free maid about the place, no matter how much of a cunt said maid was). 

"Life shouldn't have to be that way," Dongyoung said, despite his better instincts to leave the room and abandon his cereal. If Taeyong had been in the room before him, he surely would've left breakfast and instead eaten the protein bar that had fallen from his most recent hookup's hoodie pocket and onto some laundry. It was just last night after all, and it hadn't sat for too long folded up in his own painting smocks; his hookup had been a self suspected jock, in reality quite the twink with the feminine complexion ripped straight from a gym bunny donning  her three highlighter appliqué glory. Should a thirty year old's memories suffice for more than eight hours, he had been a third year college student who had much to prove to his high baton parents. His knack for overexerting was far out lapping his knack for science and thus he was quite close to failing this term's syllabus, frustrated as a byproduct, clingy and desperate for the security yet high risk a stranger's bed might offer after the tipsiness lined through the sheets. Dongyoung was quite the shadow in the alley to Taeyong's cheap shots, and thus he paused to consider if last night was a lower tier fuck for him- as a motion one might attempt to smash a hole in Seoulite plaster wall and escape up to freedom of thought and consideration- and came to the conclusion that it was mid, that he came and perhaps it was enough, and that the twink was all over him at the bar and in the cab and sometime that very morning too, when the air in the room wasn't so compressed with Dongyoung's blues as to repel him, the water flooded out the bedroom door. Dongyoung sipped some coffee, though the sweetener tablets were troubling themselves in an appropriate manner, with their dissolvence. The liquid was luke warm even through the ceramic. It required a lot to have such a shit morning with such a mediocre spin to it, and yet a god overlooking the maze was placing such specific obstacles before him that he could only wonder how it all went on. 

"No one ever told you life was gonna be this way," Taeyong said in broken English cringey enough to stir ghosts in their graves. It was only really legible as when they were at the tethering state most frayed by each relationship's closing note, they used to eat these dinners so well cooked that from the ashes, beauty was glittered across the trays and the board most forlorn, and as they did the tv would be on to mangle up their silence and place a plastic bag over its head until its suffocation could almost be described as quiet without any deadliness- this sputtering being that was born from their flaws descending into unfounded exaggerations, and the channel they always watched had subbed episodes of Friends on quite honestly twenty four seven, as though it could ever turn out any other way. Dongyoung had been going insane, maybe even stir crazy- the more they watched, the more nights that passed, the more he could recognise Monica's voice before Taeyong's, her compassion doses that stayed loyal to creatures worth second thoughts. It had clicked and inevitably unclicked. For them, it was borderline hatred in the sense that bloomed through familiarity; one always loved to wear Ben 10 pyjamas as a kid, yet if they were forced to wear them to eternity of course the negatives would hasten to expose themselves. It was a sad truth. All humans get sick of everything, and it happens all the time. Dongyoung had learned to cope and had unlearned it and was in its spirals, bound yet again to his love hate emotions towards his most prized thing that existed in life and in death- this being his own artwork and his own paintings. He realised with a start that Taeyong had turned to look at him, the dish rag clasped in his veiny hands. It dripped grey laced suds all over their sandstone tiles that had astounded in dearness. "I don't know why you tell me about these things then get pissed off when I try to help," he said. "All I'm saying is, with all that skill you've got, you're failing to use it in marketable ways-" to this statement, the conviction came from his vaguely explained degree in 'economics' that Dongyoung had attended his graduation for. When he threw his cap it fell in a student's mother's lap and was promptly lost among the nerves and scuffle. "-People don't want the classical stuff anymore, they want the  _ art of the future _ , the movement, the development of the industry- I know you hate modern art, but that just makes money hate you."

"People like the impressionists era for a reason," Dongyoung pointed out, failing not to be pretentious. His mind was busied up formulating methods with which he could escape the kitchen yet avoid the oil stench in his room, the turpentine that had whirred his brain up throughout the prelude to the main event last night, had bothered him so much the amber might as well have been implanted a layer below the skin and a layer above the blood rush. Right now there was a cloaked easel somewhere below his window pane, and then the stacks upon stacks of canvas by his bed all auditioned to draw the truest insanity out from within his nervousness- a breakdown was imminent when art was about, and yet the double edged sword to a talent bred tried and true was that it must be followed by an entire soul for an entire lifetime, or it should be guillotined until it never seemed to exist in the first place. It was a strange relationship he had with his skills, that if either of them pulled away from the connection one of them would break. He'd been nice enough to sanction his oil paints in bulk to his lowest drawer chest, where they were liquidating until the paste could harden to a clay.  Entering his room would lure art in and thus it was not a viable option. But Taeyong was standing in his lady esque manner, and that was when Dongyoung knew that escaping was more than necessary. 

The sitting room. It was a thing in a pile of other things which they chose not to prod nor touch nor talk about in the slightest- the tv license had expired in June, and there were no moves made to salvage it; the sofa had its leather cracked to tatters; the Persian throw was splotched with dye from the washing machine to the point of vertigo; the memories sat in the corner, wailing, a hand mirror held to a gruesome face coated in darkness, the long blonde strips laid across the floorboards and some slipping through to the flat below, the banshee immovable yet tolerable, if one knew to avoid it, and oh lord did Dongyoung know. 

"Taeil invited us to his art show," Taeyong said then, and no mercy was spared with his tone as it came off as scathing as always. Following line with dignified viewpoints, it made no sense that their entanglements had not been torn apart to the public eye just yet.Their mutual passing was a quiet affair and could only be treated as such; one moment it was with the boring, churning serpents that the sex life laid, and next it was in turmoils messy enough to reignite old flames and hate fucking whenever it suited. To think that from the outside the mild hostility could be seen as  _ romance  _ was abhorrent. Taeyong seemed to believe the same, face flatter than anything as though the recollections were mixed with tragedy, and when he sighed his mouth fell back to his oddly(and annoyingly) attractive frown. “Why haven’t you told him about us yet?” 

“It never seemed relevant,” said Dongyoung. He, by immense ferverence, had taken to the table top quite a bit, and beneath a desperate gaze its polisher revealed itself to be much too thin. The wood was cracked up and down, and sometimes the ripple of knife marks caught the light as it pooled. He was trying not to say that he hadn’t talked to Taeil in over a year and this invitation was indeed news to him. It was a game they played- to appear more sociable, apt and charismatic, however fictional it might come off as. No one wanted to be the loser in the relationship, and unfortunately there always had to be one. Just last week Taeyong had gone to his boss’s townhouse for dinner and was still leeching off the high it gave him, then it was these calls from a work correspondent who was ‘located abroad’ that plagued him, Dongyoung’s idea of mercy besmirched in the proceedings. They were not nice people, and even before each other did the concealing curtain manage to droop further.  “His art show can go to hell.”

“You know what I’ve always thought about Taeil?” Taeyong scrubbed suds off his hands and into the sink until his skin wore thin, like tenderised pork slabs that were still raw. Even though he was turned away, his looming cruelty could not be more obvious- it was the way his voice tried to contain itself with excitement, how artificially smooth it went, a robot making contact with humans under the facade of one itself, fake brand Lee Taeyong. “He’s  _ very _ good looking.”

“Uh huh,” Dongyoung murmured. 

“When you first introduced me I was really taken off guard by it, my god. If you’re not going to that show I might just show up anyway… How’d you think he’ll take that? Will he be happy to see me, I wonder?” Taeyong hummed and folded the dish rag over, though it did not need to be folded as it was a  _ dish rag. _ He was despicable at times with his neatness and the order he called before the audiences he pretended to entertain. Dongyoung had micro analysed him so many times in his head before that the traumas and links jumped out at him, and he conspired that Taeyong had lead a disorderly life throughout childhood which spurred his control freak mannerisms over stupid shit.  Or he was simply deranged- one could never tell with him. 

Dongyoung stood and left the bowl there, perhaps with spite and perhaps with laziness. “I’ll go,” he said, like it was decided in previous scenes and only just brought forth to his conscience.  “He wants me there, so I’ll go, and so you won’t.”

It was time to leave yet nowhere could present itself as welcoming; to him it was a matter of being just thirty and still somehow caught in a tide that had turned the sand grey centuries before he’d come to be, but to others it could only appear as someone who’d brought middle age depression upon themselves, and the salt would forever remain on other sides of pearls he no longer had the will nor youth to reach. It was ten in the morning and already had his day ended- and as he fell in a pace that made it a point not to draw attention to itself, he felt a city which once bowed before him spin again and again despite his form, stilled. 

  
  
  


_ Canvas one _

The first painting was one he took pleasure in believing was formed from a collection, something about the ‘obelisk’ nature the faces betrayed. Two tall girls sit at a riverbank wrapped up in christening white gowns, their legs now painted out by strokes so inhuman and so long it’s somewhat embarrassing in retrospect, and ribbons wound tightly about their shins so as to strangle the blood stream up to a raw pink. One is wearing a hat which is long enough that it covers a single eye, and the other is lidded fully by her eyelashes, the purpose to disgust most successful in practice. They do not talk to each other. Instead, they wither where they sit as the sunlight can do nothing but filter through the oil. 

  
  
  


So it came out to the press that Dongyoung was to leave the flat, and not return home until the war which Taeyong had wagered, for general lofty thrills, had fizzled out. For a while he had enjoyed donning hats that stood out against the night scene- the kind business men wore, the kind with brims wide enough to mop a day’s salary up with- and it gave him the most important sense, and in importance he trusted. What he’d learned from that phase was that pride was easy to obtain for oneself, yet it took leaps and bounds to translate into a language a passing pretty face could admire. Thus the hats were segregated into various industrial size canned food boxes and brought to a charity shop that Taeyong wouldn’t complain about. He was a finicky creature and nosy nonetheless, and though he was short he still managed to prop his ego high enough that it was harder still to stroke; he’d objected to the donations on a moral level at first, and had refused to let Dongyoung pack the hats up in his beat up car that was leased to him by cold parenting.  _ Ah, Dongyoung, even I’m surprised by your lack of consideration this time. Haven’t you seen how the Salvation Army divides their donations? They spent most of it on corporate threats in 2017- stupid shit like dental care for employees and landscaping their branches and probably a lamborghini or two. You’ve gotta research these things before diving right in,  _ he’d said mid thrust.

Dongyoung hadn’t wanted to admit what was admitted by his nature alone, that he just wanted to clean his hands of them and wasn’t donating for the sake of poverty stricken villas in the slightest, or that goodwill had escaped him even as fetal tissue. There were negotiations to work through and by the end he felt a distinct pain that he should’ve simply burned them until the horrible fabric fumes resounded about Seoul for weeks after. Even so much as seeing a hat made him want to vomit, and though this wasn’t uncommon in his youth it was now less to do with shallow means, and moreso to do with the way they’d ungraciously troubled him with potence. Now he wore a suit ill fitting enough to catch job interviews like flies through his venus sharded jaw. It moved about him and seemed to have a mind of its own, but in this quarter the people were rummed enough not to look at each other twice and certainly not for a lick too long- the bowed slews in the streets holding their drinks higher than their crowns, receding into squares where three bars and a slum interlooped, and the men dropped loose change and the women dropped fake nails. It was staleness at its clearest, the city wherein he lived and ceased to do so, and the after work line melded into one huge, greying artefact that chipped when ran over with anything larger than love. The bars would shut down and reopen, the pavement would empty and draw, one by one they would take turns resting their heads for the last time- for what? For what? He thought this as the bitterness within him waged havoc, as the spite flooded his eyes first clear and the red, for what did they suffer? Was it melodramatic to see the path laid before him as a lie, a miss step in the grand scheme of things, almost dishonest- sly in its cobbles- this phantom limb unbeknownst to his being that twisted and turned by no input of his own? Taeil had  _ art shows  _ and Dongyoung had a phobia that prevented him from returning to his work with comfort. However unfair the trade off, he though as he rounded a corner where a florists had been built to rot, that he would trade places any day if only his beliefs weren’t on the line, that he’d cut each swimming facet of Taeil away from his body until he lay broken, destined to this same unfaithful life and path, this same horrid existence, this same hopelessness and this same future empty from all that might make it good or bad or heavy. In a millisecond he’d witness the healthy optimism dim in Taeil’s eyes. Taeil, who had not learned what it meant to struggle for his craft, would be taught a lesson in true artistry, and by extension, true unhappiness. What a rosy idea, he thought. But perhaps it only existed in the ease that came with the knowledge that it would never come true. A musing or a fetish or cute fiction- still he pondered and still he did not know which. 

  
  
  


_ Canvas two _

When it was dark out Dongyoung had developed a need to paint the brighter things in life. With care, he’d undergone the painstaking ordeals that laughed it off with oil painting as a medium and as a practice; for this one his palette had expanded from the familiar plastic dish to even a small section of plaster wall beside his wardrobe, though the frustration never boiled over into passion so much as hatred(like most things in his life, or most people perhaps) that his mind may formulate a colour he couldn’t replicate in real life no matter how hard he tried. In his mind it was a yellow so happy it lacked dimension, and on his dish it went from pink to desaturated blue to orange to various yellows. When its surface was covered in this fashion, he took to mixing the paint on the wall to not spoil any prospects the dish’s selection might offer. This had occurred last winter when the days were perhaps more depressing, yet the snow was light and familiar- and still he hadn’t bothered covering the stains. From time to time, it ate at him. With age one learns to suppress short comeuppances. 

The canvas itself was originally block coloured yellow, yet even he could not deny its similarities to tasteless modern art, and thus he went over it until it became a classical masterpiece, and one of his most prized portfolio additions; depicting the Aquarius water bearer in fucking fifty shades of blue that somehow still worked together. The face had taken the longest even at his most mechanical, most methodical mindset, hours and hours over eyes that seemed to assume the worst.  _ She looks sad _ , Taeyong had said on the matter, zeroing in on the listlessness.  _ Even dead.  _

_ You have to live to die, _ Dongyoung had said, pouring the sunflower oil into the hot pan. When the chopped peppers were flipped they sputtered out sparks so hot they burned his hand.  _ She’s a god, Taeyong. She doesn’t feel anything.  _

Taeyong had snorted, but Dongyoung knew he was impressed; he hadn’t looked away from the canvas once.  _ Think that one up just there? _

_ It’s not such an uncommon belief. Even so, I only believe what I do and nothing else. _

_ You’re insanely pretentious.  _

_ And talented? _

_ Of course, that too. But being talented doesn’t make you a good person. _

Dongyoung smiled. That had always been the hardest fact to swallow. Perhaps it helped that Taeyong wasn’t one to talk about good people, either.

  
  
  
  


They didn’t talk about good people very much, as mostly they just talked about each other(it was therapeutic in a way, to throw everything at the wall and see which statement left scar tissue)- the exceptions being the company they kept to display; the coworkers on the prowl after a long day spent accounting for other people’s banking expenses, the boss’s hot wife in a bikini top at a company barbecue, or the young one at the club with symmetrical kohl eyeliner that seeked the most attention even through a crowd, and on the quieter side were the opinions on their old college friends who hadn’t failed to find their redeemable qualities so much as noticed their absence post graduation, when white picket fences were enacted as an ideal way of life. Coincidence should have it that Moon Taeil was one of these friends. Dongyoung thought that he never liked him, but this was of course a lie as any other. The recovery wasn’t smooth and yet it worked for him, letting on as such, for Taeil was an affable person and a repeller to trouble, the kind of lovely that wanted what was best for everyone they’d ever met, no matter the connection. It was not the shadowed friendship Dongyoung envisioned it to be and he was aware of it. He had given Taeil no reason not to invite him to the showing, and Taeil had given him no room for refusal in turn- they had shared secrets as brothers and somehow still laughed as friends afterwards. He had been nice to Dongyoung when it didn’t suit, too; it only made sense that there should be something inauthentic about it. However, he’d never felt cornered enough to cry farce, and instead reduced himself to carry on in an ignorance he’d surely have a preference for, if only he knew what it was that had been jailed away where his short sighted eyes hadn’t the courtesy to blur upon. Taeyong pretended he was an avid fan of Taeil’s artwork- a grotesque series that was, to be frank, replicated again and again under different names, pretentious whether in the minimalist sense or how the titles were overstuffed so their appendix’s almost burst and their feathers pricked off to a pile for next time.  The weekly guides packaged with newspapers were always one to rave about whatever he shitted out next, and Dongyoung theorised that perhaps Taeil was one to chew at paint tubes until it burst between his canines and the red pierced his tongue, the oil slippery coating his gums, colours fighting against acid reflux down to his gullet where it might be digested into a future vanity project with the great care necessary.

Dongyoung’s paintings weren’t of another realm where geometric shapes turned to each other for biodegradable beauty, but rather of another time, brush strokes languid or rigid, done before again and again so the admonitions from those he succeeded appeared phantom in his sleep, just between his eyelids and his corneas, laid heavy yet in traces nonetheless.  _ Everything you do has been done before,  _ his professor had said so as to explain the C.  _ Not as perfectly, sure, but sometimes technical skill isn’t what art’s about. You seem like you have nothing to say, I’m sorry to be harsh but I want to see you improve. Messages are fundamental in art.  _

He didn’t possess vulnerability enough to appear warm, they said. To no fault of his own his soul worked under silent conditions, and would find it perverse should this change, and then a strike would be all but inevitable. Hadn’t anyone considered that what they said was harmful- no, dangerous?

He didn’t get to be a good person, and no one had ever told him he was capable of it either. Taeil really had it all- one could forget the brunt that came with vapidness, but the same could not be said for his magnetism, his charm and conduct that drew people in, and as close as people got he never lunged or lashed out, even when they grazed the points where his teeth were patched white and he could bite their heads off should he choose to; he never turned people away or scolded them for wanting to bask in his light, and he always, always smiled. A photogenic life could only be reserved for the winners, and he far surpassed even those on par with him in an aspect or two by handsomeness alone. 

Sometimes Dongyoung thought that that was why Taeyong had broken up with him. Despite this, he didn’t have it in him to regret a thing, if only for the superiority complex the entire fiasco had given him access to.

As it goes, Taeyong was once again talking about the art show, and seemed to have golden intentions to the core when he praised it to childish extents. “We really should go, even if you forget everything else,” he said, and one could swear he belonged in Dongyoung’s room by the patent stature he held, so prideful and flamboyant that his chest almost rose visibly- nevertheless they both regarded it and perhaps imagined it as such. It was the noon before the night before, and already the sense that they’d go ham at the event’s mini bar was finding commonplace among other catastrophes. It was slated to occur in one of the many Seoul National Galleries, however this one was quite intricate in its geographical location; the internet suggested it was overlooking a lake that had a reputation for containing the corpses of many drunks and robbed corporate slaves on the slow conveyor belt home, and in each image its cobalt waters seemed to be telling Dongyoung to keep away, to stay at home perhaps, as a glint rippled over what shouldn’t be a tide in the night time and the reeds posed against pointy shadows, even such an emotion as menace in their midst. The place itself was more modern art: a huge marble column carved out into its own industrial masterpiece. He’d never seen so much glass on one building before and yet it couldn’t surprise him; of course it could only ignore the joys that came with well sculpted architectural anomalies, fuck the past. The way he saw it, there were aesthetic betrayals with why no one had chosen to build their house in such a manner before, as much as the security breaches that lured art thieves into what had never set out with the intentions of being a tape roll for these marred flies suspended from a humid ceiling. Already he felt the chill coming on, his conscience scared for its livelihood. He was about to tell Taeyong that no, he wouldn’t forget a thing. No, get out of my room, you stalker. If only they were strangers, and if only Taeyong was breaking and entering the house so that Dongyoung could have no choice but to turn to the police for his prompt removal. He began flipping through Dongyoung’s sketches without even considering whether or not he’d been graced with the right to(as though such a thing could be committed to wordlessly), and it was almost inappropriate how his eyes widened so more lead could sink in- they were all works of their own, all perfect in that branded way so unspecific, the mastery in each one immaculate to methods that surpassed a human eyeball’s capabilities of revelling among. It was enough that he was impressed by it, and to ask for more would be to invite a vampire into one’s home. “I know you want to, as much as you act like you don’t.”

“Why don’t you just go?” Dongyoung said, sighing, and then he was still there in bed, wondering whyever Taeil hadn’t counted as a reason for his win in the relationship, and why he didn’t win for having the guts to remain in the no man's land the flat had became. As much as he exaggerated their pivotal importance, the bottom line was that his contacts were indeed genuine and they ghosted about across the entire landscape, these summer kids as far as the eye could see that reached out to him on holidays; he’d been wished a happy birthday dozens of times this year and still it hadn’t sunk into the dust, not to mention Lee Taeyong’s softening brain. Dongyoung was far too stubborn to make any real threats and yet another fake life was to be found with Park Sooyoung in Jeju, with whom he’d studied and painted a work for memorial day by the mural clusters in other towns over. She and her country bumpkin esque, lumpy face pressed so close to her canvas that the short sightedness flocked with glee, and he sketching a cherry tree a meter away, brushes cleansed in freshwater. The house by the river would be insulated and yet as he lay down each night, the running water would still seem as though it was below his very bed. Taeyong would be decaying in a flat until he understood what it meant to be ratfaced and unimportant. Such tracts were tantalising and yet the prospect was far too heavy to practice, and thus he remained in his current state until it lost all meaning to exist at all, much less in cityscape where people died from living. 

Eight P.M smothered over the city and the subway carriages steamed with breath, but in Dongyoung’s mind it was still the seventeenth century where admonitions no longer had to weep to be labelled otherwise. Study rooms emptied out slackers who would commit suicide the night before exams, and high school girls tiptoed about well lit areas looking for junkys to groom alcohol from in exchange for lewd smiles and kissy faces, and Dongyoung tied his tie within his shitty, brick-in-the-wall apartment that hadn’t the courtesy nor controversy to rid its tenants itself, for eviction was not a fate worse than remaining, and he thought,  _ even if this changes, it still happened, _ and he sighed as Taeyong offered him his arm, turning to leave.

  
  
  


The third ominous reincarnation of Seoul’s National Gallery was lit up from the first pane in the column, strobe lights risen to the top so one could see dust particles cling to the ceiling and shadows as they hovered through their smoke breaks. Dongyoung still had Taeyong’s arm, and he came up tall in the short crowd- it would take but the displacement of neck bone to gaze upon the lake’s surface as it crystallised, so still one could presume its solidness in quiet honesty, the amber where the dimmed light from closing strip malls made gradients in each cobblestone, occupied by pinpoint heels and red soles that connected to slim, impending legs and then garbed bodies. They all seemed to take no issue with how their finery would reek tomorrow; the invite had promised a wine bar. Of course it worked under the presumption that other liquor would still bask, yet it was an ugly thing to show face when it came to getting drunk and Dongyoung knew as such, had brought the cash accordingly and baked in adolescent soberness until it so presented itself, the night’s word still contained behind every rouge mouth. The doors had yet to open and no one had thought to kick at the glass just yet though the cold beckoned in a way that as lonely as he felt, it should only make sense not to disregard the company it gave in restless vapours. Soon the snow would hive when no establishments had the salt to be away with it and a white winter in the city seemed imminent. No other possibility existed but the romance the pedestrians would undergo through it; however single one was, it was almost impossible to not relish the beauty and glamour that overcame a frosted skyline, how the flowers in the hotel night gardens were dusted with what looked to be icing sugar yet were never let wilt- they lived in an environment just maintained enough that struggle was inevitable but life after death followed suit, and hand in hand mortality walked the aisle with its opposite force. Just the fabrics in juxtaposition were fancy enough that Dongyoung’s gut expected finger food. Maybe prawn cocktail, should he get off lucky, and salmon laid on ciabatta so thin it could pose as a glorified crisp otherwise. Taeil must be about the place with his middling complexion wrestled up to the nines in something pompous and suitably unique; Taeyong’s bets were on a baby blue suit with copper cufflinks, which were carved into dollymix shapes, shiny enough to crave. The dream was that middle age had destroyed what complexities his attractiveness held until his features smushed together in a blur. Dongyoung felt his ribs prance and collide within him, the brittle bone marrow- if they locked eyes he might just vomit. In the puddle- and it wouldn’t be hard to see through the clear pooled liquid- would be his heart, so dried up and compacted it didn’t even stain with red or with grey, but rather floated down the surface, hollow. Oh, how the female attendees would squeak at such a grotesque sight, shoe sponge already soaking in the heartwater! 

Almost all the attendees had low pitched voices, even the women(or perhaps especially these equity agents and art praisers in pants get up, no bare legs in sight today), and when the doors first rumbled flat each and every one hushed. The curator behind the door was poised, tattily dressed. Dongyoung could tell he was already hated. Some of the higher class had no semblances when it came to what other people did for a living, and expected their organs to be invested into their jobs moreso than they already were, and not for retail but rather in a joyous sense, enthusiasm and adorations for those who they served as astounding characters and not the depositories they never failed to be. Someone said,  _ it’s not very personable, is it?  _ and he was proud in a way that Taeyong snorted. It had been so long since they spoke about their hatred for others, as it served malicious causes much better to shield them behind niceties and pretend to like them- there was no way to tell if Taeyong had become a washed up little kid with a business degree, just as his old friends had once become and would never see the end of. Parents died, accounts swam in murky waters where debt had once taken a dip, and one could not vouchsafe for their rent when not similarly covered in daisies. 

Taeyong was smart in this way; he never convinced himself he was anything he wasn’t. It was ego that ruined most people, after all, good people who were too aware of it, and still he maintained an unmemorable job and a flat that lacked a computer desk. Beside Dongyoung, he tugged his arm ever so slightly, as if to say  _ don’t let go _ . Through the people they streamed and resurfaced in the atrium where a group conversation was already being picked at. The clogs swarmed them as they got caught circling the drain, despite having no wishes to partake in smalltalk most interesting- about art, about cyberculture, about their sentiments on the pork faced janitor making the rounds, and then about which currators they had once shared beds with, and why it would never be the one who’d opened the door so rudely. They seemed to be under the impression that it was in good jest, as the curator had slipped off- perhaps to laugh at them- but Dongyoung was not in the humour to speak against this and pull forth their defensiveness. The light beamed in from a distant room, off white but still uncomfortable to watch slide across the granite tiles; there was no artwork in the entrance and everyone acted a bit put off by this, perhaps in their subconscious and irritation that the space was so very empty without human life to infest as it did just then, glass screens pristine enough that spilled blood would slide down its entirety in seconds and no residue would cling. Even if no one was inclined to say such a thing, everyone knew that it would be the perfect place for a murder. It wouldn’t even have to be a crime scene- not a thing that’d contain its devastation, too bare and scrubbed down with ferverence and far too sanitary to contain any darkness, this transceiver for the killer’s fantasy that existed not in reality. The words grew more hushed between lipsticked mouths and they took on a solemn edge, and a rippled went down Dongyoung’s spine at the sight, as though someone had reached down into his back with one splotched hand and ran fingers through the liquid marrow. He hadn’t noticed when he became liquid. 

Still, they brewed until Taeil approached the head of the group, having been lost about the place due to unspecified charisma and shortness. His suit was baby blue and his bow tie was a pink to wince at, the colour of powder in an old lady’s compact that had faded over the years. The hair gel was laid on so thick that he could nosedive off a complex balcony and bounce up from the cement on impact, putty forming a chrysalis about his ears and dipping down to his eyes almost, vision obstructed by the individual strand, and his fingers had left tracks in the mold. Despite this, it was mortifying to be informed at such a hush that middle age had not yet called to his residence and he was thus far unaffected- dapper as anyone had ever seen him, free from adult life in a way that most kids couldn’t manage. “Welcome everyone!” he said first, too loud. A startled yuppy to Dongyoung’s left dropped another man’s wrist, where she’d been examining the watch that was praised enough not to be gold plated. It was embellished with the same purple gems that scorned his cufflinks- truly tacky. “I’m honoured to see so many of my esteemed colleagues at the opening night of the show- this is big stuff, I’m telling you. The art’s nothing like you’ve ever seen from me before, and I’ve made sure that its details were kept secret until now. I’m so excited to see what you all think! So excited that I just can’t bare to talk any longer-”

“-then don’t,” said a man at the back who was viewing Taeil with fond eyes. The crowd laughed, and Dongyoung took great care not to join in by instinct. It was a stupid thing when stale comedy was deemed as funny before a charitable audience such as the one he was trapped among- however, they were only ever charitable to their own kind. The knowledge that it could be made uncomfortable by anyone hung over their heads, and the string was being peared at each second they weren’t in the exhibition rooms and the flood gates remained patched. Soon, they would confront this, and soon people would clear out when it was revealed they had no intentions to stay beyond the first glance; then the barterers would be left to request a work straight from the wall, then be told the works were on reserved rotation and could be given back in a year, no more, no less. The audience would sip at the wine in place of acrylics and artists would shop around for subjects or collaboration or attention, or all three. Someone would ask to take a photo with Dongyoung, and failing that, of him; another photographer looking to add to a diminished portfolio by people who would not understand that they should be paid for their work, would feel honoured even. He wouldn’t fall for it. It was always the same at these things, and it had been for all their post degree thrills- from Nakamoto Yuta to Kim Jungwoo to Jung Jaehyun, who went from smoking cigarettes outside mixers to smoking cigars inside bubbles. The difference was that even the eternal fountain of youth had been scraped at for years by now, and the time was ticking, and though these freaks pretended they never aged the slow death was reeling them in too sharply to ignore by anyone’s standards. 

They were shown to the the rooms. There were three of them with entrances that all faced each other, and Taeil went on about how he’d chosen to put specific paintings in specific places so as not to confuse the novice entertainer. Well if there were novice entertainers among them, they were either too portentous or oblivious to listen to him. It went as so; he would speak in flamboyance that waxed on trained diction(which Dongyoung conspired would not be out among his parents’ lawn fixtures for him, perhaps having been raised with a patchwork nurse who taught him how to speak so well) and nobody would listen, but everybody would catch the drift. It was a wonderful thing. Charmed. I might even be  _ too _ thoughtful, laughs. His hands were doing odd numbers, cutting through invisible enamel that hovered in the air. The way he moved, it became more and more obvious that his suit was not tailored to fit the true him, not his girlish, rounded shoulders or his bow legs or his disproportionately long arms, but rather the phantom broadness swelled up against the  Taeil shoulders in a straight line so he couldn’t have bad posture if he tried. There were bin bags in the world that would flatter him more. Still, he persevered through until they were finally allowed to flee into the rooms, and as the speech wrapped an air of impatience was seeping out from Taeyong in a way that’d make him flush if he was only aware of it, this infinite sourness brooding sideways. He pulled Dongyoung along to the room most unoccupied, despite himself, wherein Dongyoung tried his fucking hardest not to look at anything before him. Were his eyes closed he could pass as a sleepwalker mid spasm. By design, perhaps the prospect of looking had always somewhat been entangled with one that told stories from desolate characters and personalities, all these failures that never hit the margin no matter how the margins were pegged and their widowers in hand and line, the greyness and smaug wasting their time on these nothings. There were sewage rats that wandered across pans in night markets, that fulfilled their life purpose. Dongyoung was aging quickly and had not gone without trying his damnedest. Still, as the paint struck out across each glass paved canvas, the yellows and blues in a merrigold field could but resemble bruises in an unlucky gauche slate to him, the abuse Taeil had placed upon expensive materials so deserving of better; he knew he was fading. There was no way around it, really. He’d risen up the marble steps without tasting the fresh climate at the summit, nor seeing the scenic mountains fold over for those who succeeded. Just three cobbles richetted with fossils left, shined and polished, and he’d arrive at his destination, but his legs were rotting from the ankle up, crumbling to chalky shards. Every time someone spoke to him he’d begin and forget where he left off. He stood in hallways and waited for things he could no longer remember. The capacity to see himself as anything but greedy had long since escaped him, along with the will as the cage wires separated. The feathers, they glowed so beautifully, and he knew the happiness would mean little to him either way. It was hard to love a wasteland, and thus it was hard to love his life. However unrequited, the guilt would not sway him, and he stood there in front of  _ ‘Orchards Through a Telescope _ ’ and felt how the tears tortured themselves to the corners of his eyes, the small diamonds inserted oblong and unmistakably incorrect. 

He would not cry. People would not understand this, but there was a reason to, and because people wouldn’t understand he refrained from such outlets. There was no reason to stay- it was a night where the misery outweighed the need to bribe it with spite, and bed should do best occupied by an anchored body crumpling up the sheets. How despicable that such paintings would be misguided enough not to turn invisible! That idiots had enough power to bestow said power unto them! That a man who tried and cared as much as he did should be shunned for doing things too properly, too well, too successfully. A vision was worth a penny but  _ talent…  _ that was where true art chose to lay and sleep and live and love- in a reasonable host. The fact that a mere human could paint things with such grace was where it kept coming back to when it was tired from elsewhere, that a person could make themselves become a deity. If only such truth was easily digested with caviar, then it could return the adoration to deserving pinstriped pockets. 

“Taeyong,” he said to the man next to him who he’d chosen not to know. They would never admit it again for fear of what it meant, but they had been the sole consistent forces in each other’s lives too long to discount. It sometimes induced motion sickness when he considered what Taeyong meant to him in his entirety; this boy who’d attended too many of the same bad-memory-parties to be a coincidence, trailing around after Wong Yukhei and breaking hearts in his shadow, wide eyes as a cover up and lager to cool down. They’d grown up together in an alternative way. He’d gone from a jeans phase to an indie label phase just before Dongyoung’s eyes. It was the nostalgia, but still the flush was as imminent as it was an encapsulation of desire- his skin could heat wherever a love had touched at one point and the rushes were too romantic to place their resemblance with spiders, crawling up his shins and along his jugular. Young love was such a pretty thing. It was a shame most museums only uncovered it when it was too late, and when its polish was tarnished enough that its display would be an insult. There was a reason why Taeyong still believed he was Dongyoung’s first boyfriend, first time, first obsession- leading lambs to the chopper wasn’t nice. The blood was too persistent, too much effort to clean. There had been three lovers and he’d been faithful to just one. Perhaps livelihood wasn’t the only thing Dongyoung had been selfish with. 

It was easy to let Taeyong play house and happy families as much as he pleased, almost like a game. His ego had swelled every time the confessions bubbled up, and as true as they were they’d been preceded by an unwritten history unbeknownst to him.

Greed. As if the terms had ever been paved by anything else. As if Taeyong wasn’t a whiney rich kid at heart who’d been fed money all his life until he could shit it out on instinct. As if he hadn’t always been a showpony to charm with flips and pirouettes as long as someone looked his direction; it was the gap he’d been bred and trained into. Now that his parents were dead, he’d lost his purpose in a way more obvious than presumed. He’d sat on money and complexion all his life only to forget why he had to in the first place, but still was too distrusting to figure it out himself. He’d grown up without knowing what a good life meant, what purpose was reserved for him. In a way, they were both test tube failures, pathetic stereotypes, the airheaded accountant and the suffering artist plunged in poverty and debt to drown in. Still, Dongyoung couldn’t help but care, and he hated that he did this. “Taeyong,” he said again, suddenly overcome with the need to hear his voice sculpted out to acknowledge him. “Taeyong,” he whined almost. “Taeyong, Taeyong, Taeyong-”

“ _ What is it?”  _ Taeyong had been pretending to examine a skinnily framed interpretation of the mind on various bath salts, not that Taeil had ever stepped out of line so much. There was stubble lining his jaw where he’d grazed but not mowed in the bathroom mirror earlier. These days, they shared an electric razor and deliberately disregarded all that it meant. However, he did not look like his usual self- he was reborn and youthful again, and perhaps it was the lighting or the suit but it was as though gazing into a photograph they’d taken so long ago, how bright his eyes were without being too watery, how steadfast the black pupils had been that not a shimmer was allowed sit upon them for too long, each blemish noticed by their absence and each eyelash regarded with care to curve, pointed and flat. “What do you want?” he said as Dongyoung forgot whatever he wanted in the first place, much less to respond to this person he loved deeply in place of the stranger who he’d arrived with. He thought he should know better by now, that attractiveness couldn’t change much. But when he reminisced back to moments ago wherein Taeyong had offered his arm and his help with tying the tie, each dark brown shard moths took shape as when resting was set forth within, about his guts their wings crumbled apart.

He put a hand on Taeyong’s elbow and turned back to the painting. The marigolds colourblocked the field in pretty droves, an optimists take of a garden and its white wicker gazebo where Taeil had said lovers chose as a meeting point.  _ In Jejudo,  _ he’d said, wistful,  _ there was a park with one, and that’s where I’d walk her to.  _

It was obvious now, that even badly clumped white paint had words to accomplish, the tactful messenger that exerted fond memories, the clumps where brown reeds sloped to the sun. 

“Whatever, crazy,” Taeyong murmured, but he’d moved closer to look too. Now their hands had found each other again. “What kinda sucker really pays more than a grand for this?”

Dongyoung did his silent sort of laugh- or perhaps it was a smile. It wouldn’t have to mean anything and it wouldn’t have to last, but still it had happened, and in the crowded room it was enough to only have each other, and in a crowded room it was enough to discreetly admire Taeil’s work, and it in a crowded room it was enough to think _ , hm, I could do better _ , and to have all intentions of going home and doing better. The message(and recipient) of Dongyoung’s art had warm hands. 

**Author's Note:**

> optimistic ending waheyy


End file.
